Card customisation is an important tool for
banks to encourage debit card usage as customers continue to crave
an individual and personalised approach to financial services.
Issuers have seen churn rates plummet to
almost zero as consumers find it difficult to “cut up their family
and friends”, said Alex Cahn, sales director for digital card
design company Serverside EMEA, at VRL’s Cards and Payments Europe
2011 conference in Frankfurt.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Access deeper industry intelligence
Experience unmatched clarity with a single platform that combines unique data, AI, and human expertise.
Further results from around the world also
show the benefits of card customisation technology. America First
Credit Union saw a 68% increase in card activity as a result of
offering the service, Lebanese Blom Bank saw a 60% increase and
Australia’s Newcastle Permanent Bank noted a 31% rise.
While the average ticket value decreases for a
customer with a customised card, their payments volume increases as
they start to use the card to pay for purchases they would usually
associate with cash.
Some banks are making the decision to charge
for the customisation service with Serverside research
showing Eastern European banks typically charge around €5 and
banks in the UK are opting to set a slightly higher fee of
£7.50. While there may be an obvious immediate return on investment
for banks, Cahn warns uptake of the technology will be lower as
there will be those that will refuse to pay for the service.
“There have been a lot of value added services
that have not been transparent because it is difficult to get
consumers to value a free service,” says Luke Olbrich, head of
debit at MasterCard Europe.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalData“If consumers want an additional service, such
as card customisation, they have to pay for it.”
Not all banks agree. Cahn notes one more
transaction per week per consumer is a good enough justification
for a lot of banks to offer the customisation service for free.
